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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694106">The Color of the Skies</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm'>Drag0nst0rm</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Book 6: Return of the Thief (Queen's Thief), Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Minor canonical character death, Missing Scene, Spoilers for Book 6: Return of the Thief (Queen's Thief), The Amanix Uprising</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:55:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,001</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five perspectives on the history of the Attolian Skies - and the price that's paid to get them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eugenides &amp; Eugenides the God, Eugenides' Grandfather &amp; Eugenides</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Color of the Skies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>(The megaron is burning, and it is not the Thief's fault.)</p><p>(He is not above taking advantage of it, however, particularly for such a worthy prize.)</p><p>(His king is worried about the uprising that gave birth to these flames, but the thief has endured enough wary glares from his king not to care about that. The priestess of his patron was bloodied by these riots, however, and <em>that</em> is very much his concern, by duty and by right.)</p><p>(On a professional level.)</p><p>(And, because that priestess was Andromache, on a personal level.)</p><p>(He has to admit, too, that he likes the thought of stealing the skies themselves, even if the feat is not quite literal.)</p><p>(He is proud of stealing the skies, and he knows he cannot afford to get too proud, so he offers them up to his patron instead of to his ever suspicious king.)</p><p>(He makes sure Andromache is watching as he does so.)</p><p> </p><p>When Irene’s tutor teaches her about the Amanix uprising, he says, “The barons were angry about the high taxes the king had levied in order to pay for his building projects. Some of them rallied around the exiled Prince Amanix whose claim to the throne had previously been rejected. This claim was, of course, entirely spurious, and the uprising was eventually quelled. Unfortunately, not everything was put to rights easily - the king's megaron had to be rebuilt, and the Attolian Skies were lost in the upheaval.”</p><p>The tutor does not explain exactly what made Amanix’s claim spurious. Irene, who has studied the tangled genealogical charts of the period, is not entirely sure the claim was spurious at all. She suspects that the failure of his rebellion is what determined this and not any other reason.</p><p>But this is not the kind of observation a shadow princess is supposed to make, so she keeps her mouth shut, and her eyes demurely down as she listens on.</p><p>She does not think much on the lost gems at all.</p><p> </p><p>When Eugenides’s grandfather teaches him about the Amanix uprising, he takes him to the treasury of their patron in Eddis and shows him the Attolian Skies.</p><p>They go in the dead of night and move silently so as not to wake the priests. His grandfather’s hands shake as they move, but his steps are still firm.</p><p>No one would dare to suggest that the Thief of Eddis should not take his successor to the temple of Eugenides, no matter what the time of day, but the priests might object to their presence in the treasury.</p><p>But it is not the priests’ objections which would matter.</p><p>“My grandfather stole those in the middle of the bloodiest uprising in Attolian history,” his own grandfather remarks, eyes glinting even in the shadowed room. “What does that teach you?”</p><p>“Chaos is an opportunity,” Eugenides says promptly. He has heard this lesson from his grandfather before.</p><p>The Thief tilts his hand, accepting the truth of this but demanding more. “But why did he steal it?”</p><p>Eugenides looks at him blankly. <em>Because he could</em> seems reason enough.</p><p>His grandfather cuffs him around the head. “Because Prince Amanix was also trying to steal the Crown Jewels since he thought getting them would help establish his legitimacy,” he corrects, “and because he was a military genius with a hunger for conquest that we couldn’t afford to see on the throne. We had to get to them first.”</p><p>Eugenides nods.</p><p>“Eddis is small and poor,” the Thief says. “The only reasons we haven’t fallen yet are the mountains and our wits. If you can outwit the rest of the peninsula, the mountains will take care of themselves.”</p><p>There is something the Thief leaves out of that list, though Eugenides does not realize it at the time.</p><p>His grandfather falls a week later.</p><p>He is not caught as he does.</p><p> </p><p>When new temples are built in Attolia, their sister temples in Eddis contribute to their treasuries in a gesture of goodwill.</p><p>The Attolian Skies are one of the gifts.</p><p>It is just as easy for the king to reach them now as it was when he first saw them. He looks at them for a long moment before he dares to touch.</p><p>“I take these alone,” he says quietly. The silent eyes of the idols watch him, and he addresses his wary words to them and the watching shadows both. “I take these having shared my plans with none, having taken aid from none, having shared the blame with none. I take these only in direst need.”</p><p>He takes a deep breath and takes the gems firmly into his hands.</p><p>“Do I offend the gods?”</p><p>A soft rain begins outside. He can just barely hear the drops on the roof above him.</p><p><em>I tell you no now,</em> a voice whispers in his mind, <em>that you may tell me yes later.</em></p><p>He does not know what could possibly be asked of him.</p><p>The stump of his arm aches.</p><p>But he has come too far to back down now, so he takes a breath once more and steals the Skies.</p><p>When he checks his pocket again, he finds three very familiar rubies have joined them in what he can only hope was an additional blessing.</p><p> </p><p>(When he lies in a tent in horrible pain, a quiet voice asks, <em>Will you grant me the leeway that I granted you?)</em></p><p>(And he does not know what that means, and is in too much pain to ask, and he knows what he owes, so he says <em>yes</em> in a gasp that is nearly breathless.)</p><p>(Then he is himself and more than himself and the pain and the fear and the grief shrink until they are as small as dust motes.)</p><p>(For a moment, as it shrinks, he is more afraid than he has ever been.)</p><p>(But there is a fierce rush of love as strong as it is alien alongside the boiling rage, and then everything shifts, and the rage is his own.)</p>
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